7 Reasons to Train with a Swim Snorkel

Curious about how a snorkel can help improve your swimming? Here are seven benefits of strapping on a swim snorkel the next time you hop in the water.

When it comes to improving swim technique, body position, and overall swimming performance, swimmers have a lot of tools at their disposal. Swim paddles. Kickboards. Pull buoys.

But one of the newest and most effective types of swimming equipment is the swimmer’s snorkel.

Since popped on the scene (and into the water) in the late 1990s courtesy of the folks over at FINIS, the snorkel quickly gained popularity among competitive and recreational swimmers.

Here is how the right swimming snorkel can help you swim better and faster than ever.

1. Helps you unleash excellent technique.

Swimming with excellent technique in the water is hard enough. But you know what makes it even harder?

Breathing.

Seriously.

Think about how many technical errors result from when you turn your head to breathe when swimming freestyle (Pollen et al., 2022).

• A pull that crosses the centerline.
• Ankles criss-crossing.
• Picking your head up too high and throwing your body out of alignment
• Excessive shoulder roll.

And so on.

Breathing—improperly—can cascade into more stroke dysfunction, causing a chain reaction of technical errors into your stroke.

While wearing a swim snorkel won’t automagically make your technique better, when you don’t have to concentrate on turning your head to breathe you can focus on swimming with an efficient stroke.

Which means: Entering the hand ahead of the shoulder. Getting the optimal amount of shoulder and hip roll. Keeping your hips high.

And building reps of muscle memory with good technique to apply to your regular swimming.

2. Improves stroke rhythm

One of the less talked about fundamentals of a good stroke is having rhythm in the water.

Because wearing a snorkel removes the hitch or gallop that a lot of swimmers use when swimming freestyle, you have a chance to get into a really good stroke rhythm.

The hitch comes from muscular imbalances and/or breathing solely to one side and can make it to sustain momentum and rhthym in the water.

To get back in rhythm, put on a swim snorkel. Without the need to breathe you can focus on building a good stroke rhythm as you cruise up and down the pool.

This can especially be done if you are swimming long course, which gives you more time to get into that rhythm and to sustain it.

3. Add balance to your stroke

If you are like most—well, all—swimmers, you have a dominant side of your body in the pool.

We favor our strengths in the water, which is natural, but this can come back to bite us in the form of overuse injuries.

In fact, one of the leading causes of swimmer’s shoulder is muscle imbalances. A study published in the Journal of Human Kinetics found a significant correlation between muscle imbalances the risk of shoulder injury in experienced competitive swimmers (Drigny et al., 2020).

A swimmer’s snorkel, by removing the breathing to one side, pushes us to swim with a more balanced stroke.

While we all love to work on our strengths, sometimes improving our weaknesses a little bit can carry more improvement in the water, and a snorkel can help you achieve a little more balance in your stroke, reducing the likelihood of injury.

4. An excellent alternative to using kickboards

I love doing kick with a kickboard. I can gulp down as much oxygen as possible and I can somewhat make out the music that the pool’s PA system is playing.

But there are some drawbacks to using a kickboard relentlessly.

For starters, having your arms out in front of you and head perched out of the sky like the periscope of a submarine is hard on your neck and traps.

With your head up, the hips tend to sink, which is not the type of motor pattern we want to be imprinting.

Kicking with a snorkel more closely mimics the body position you want in the water.

You will go slower at first compared to kicking on a kickboard, but experiment with this type of kicking (one arm in front, in a streamline, arms at side, etc.) and you will find yourself developing a stronger kick along with better body position.

6. Less strain on shoulders and neck

Let’s be honest here: turning your head hundreds of times per practice to breathe is going to eventually wear you down.

Some of the worst cramps/tweaks I’ve gotten were in my traps after a long week of distance training.

The swimmer’s snorkel is a great option on days where your neck and shoulders are sore. Or on days when you are going to the pool for a recovery session.

A way to still get the meters and yards in at the pool, and with giving your neck and shoulders a little break, is swimming with a snorkel.

7. Troubleshooting technique

Finally, the swimmer’s snorkel is a way to fine-tune your technique in the water.

Fairly obvious statement: Technique is crucial for fast swimming.

Without the distraction of breathing, you can keep your head down and dial in on problem areas of your technique.

A study with 39 collegiate swimmers assessed swimmers for common technique errors and found that 35% of the variance between the fast and slow swimmers came down to technique.

Here are some ways to troubleshoot technique with a snorkel:

• Sculling. One of the best ways to improve your feel for the water is sculling. Target a specific area of your pull (the catch, for example) and spend some time sculling there.
• Warming up. Strap on a snorkel during your warm-up to swim to get into the groove of swimming with the technique you want during the main set.
• Drills. And of course, use your snorkel to sharpen your technique when doing drills.

The Top Snorkels for Swim Training

Okay, now that we’ve waxed poetically about the benefits, how do you choose the best snorkel for swimming?

Having used every snorkel under the chlorinated sun over the years, here are my expert recommendations for the best ones.

FINIS Original Swimmer’s Snorkel

The original and by far the most popular on the pool deck, the FINIS Original has a curved, smooth tube, comfortable silicone mouthpiece that won’t exhaust your jaw muscles, and is available in a variety of different colors.

FINIS is the most creative and high-performance oriented swim brand in the pool, making tools like the Tempo Trainer, swim paddles, and every serious underwater dolphin kicker's favorite tool, the Monofin.

The FINIS Original is still the best overall, and FINIS also offers their most popular snorkel in a junior size for younger swimmers.

FINIS Stability Snorkel

More advanced swimmers will love the FINIS Stability Snorkel.

It features two head straps for a more secure fit, a more rounded tube that hugs the top of the head, and the tube can be adjusted in relation to the mouthpiece for a comfortable set-up.

Additionally, and this is a big one for swimmers who use snorkels a lot, the mouth piece can be twisted to the side to breathe or talk between sets and repetitions in the water.

Like the FINIS Original, FINIS also offers the Stability Snorkel in a junior size for youth swimmers.

Wrapping Things Up

The swim snorkel is an excellent addition to your training arsenal.

Whether you have designs on going to the next Olympics or you want to swim a mile for the first time, using a swim snorkel can help you swim with better technique, improve body position in the water, address muscle imbalances and more.

Happy swimming!